The Peer Advocates’ Clothesline Project, which just happened last week, occurs once a year in Amherst College. The Clothesline Project raises awareness about violence against women and enables them to share testimonies about their traumatic pasts - this involves the women expressing their emotions by decorating a shirt and hanging it up on a clothesline for all to see. The passersby read the content on the shirts and it is almost inevitable that they become affected. They are overwhelmed by the gravity of the emotional damage that has been done on these women, they are inspired by the strength of the women who are willing to share their pain, or, lastly, they are depressed and/or disgusted. Whatever the effect, awareness is achieved in a most effective manner.

It would be safe to say that a significant part of the three-day event is geared towards heterosexual men. Concerning the clothesline display specifically, men can be positively affected in infinite ways - they learn to take seriously just how harmful sexual disrespect can be. They are prompted to take action and figure out ways to prevent sexual violence. Or, the most crude response of looking at it would be - they are less likely to rape a woman. So we can say the effect on men is largely positive, but what of that on women? Women should feel inspired and empowered by other women speaking out about their ordeals without shame. That is about the only good way a woman passing by Valentine Quad could be affected. The T-shirts bedecked with glittery letters spelling phrases such as “you pushed your dick into me” and “when you shoved your dick down my throat” - inspires women to face the objects of their torments with all the bitterness of their hearts. How empowering.

But, is that a good thing? Here’s another way to describe that same effect - old scars are reopened, painful pasts that have been overcome are reminded of once again, and the unpleasant details needlessly begin flooding into one’s mind. All of these reactions occur in the woman passerby who, out of curiosity, reads the contents of the shirts that are hung in the quad. But a reassuring email is sent to everyone who may feel this way - the display, though meant for healing, may only trigger painful memories, so those who wish to avoid the display may enter through a separate door when going to Val. But as a former victim of sexual abuse, I was far from charmed by the notion of having to go through a separate door to avoid something that was, literally, impossible to miss.

But of course my response towards this is purely subjective - whether or not anyone else felt this way is a risk I’m willing to take. The display is indeed disturbing - not only in my eyes but in the eyes of other colleagues (both male and female) who were never victims of sexual abuse as far as I know. But nevertheless, I hope to see the shirts put up again in Valentine Quad again next year because this method of raising awareness about violence towards women is very efficacious, well-intended, and has a healing effect on both the creators and viewers of the clotheslines. But there’s always another, darker side to raising awareness, especially when it is done in a very up-front manner such as this. There are those who will be reminded of what they wish to forget simply because the majority opinion decrees that forgetting is a way of running from life’s problems, and there are those who will be encouraged to hate the source of one’s troubles because it is okay to hate and to “let it out.” The Clothesline Project is not, in itself, harmful - but there is no doubt that the content, and the thoughts they evoke, are.